Driftwood
Taking a walk along the Mississippi River, looking for pieces of driftwood to carve, there’s always a mystery to be solved.
Not many miles away, when spending time here in Missouri, the great river Mississippi runs by a small historic town called St. Charles. If you’ve a minute or two to spend with me, I want to tell you what happened yesterday, but it begins months back.
As many know, I’m more at home living by the ocean, a river doesn’t quite cut it for me, even the Mississippi, but I like to do a little scouting for different types or peculiar shaped driftwood. I’m sure we all share this interest when on the shoreline, bring it home, hang it, or do a little woodcarving, that sort of thing.
Anyway, to stop rambling on, several months ago I was walking the banks of the river looking for interesting driftwood, finding bits here and there but nothing I wanted to bring away. A piece has to capture your imagination, right? I like to look at it from all angles, trying to discern a shape to release through carving or pretty enough to leave alone.
Sorry, I’m so distracted when I write, anyway I was passing an old shack, not unlike many others I’ve seen sheltering the homeless, made from a combination of driftwood, used boards, clapboard, and heavy cardboard cartons.
It had a rusty corrugated-metal roof, one side propped up with partially rotted logs. As I was passing, I noticed within the structure a piece of driftwood, somehow incorporated into a wall. It really caught my attention.
I could plainly see, in the knots and nobs on this piece of the driftwood, through the lines of river fibers, a beautiful face screaming to be let out. I stopped to study the figure trapped inside. Curious, I tried to twist the driftwood loose, inadvertently shaking the entire unsteady structure.
“What the hell’s goin’ on out dere’? Get out of ere’ ya fucking dragon,
I see you.” The angry voice made me draw back. “Bittity Boppity Boo, I see you. Dere’ I says my spell, now get out’a ‘ere.”
I don’t need a homeless person’s aggro, so walk on. Less than a hundred feet from the shack, and still feeling a little shocked that a person was inside that old structure, I’m being chased down by an old woman staggering drunkenly after me. Seriously, she was a huge lady on a small frame with wild uncombed hair and she started thrusting a knurled stick at my back.
“Bittity Boppity Boo, I see you,” she repeated to my back as I hurried
my pace. “Bittity Boppity Boo, I see you.”
She laughed insanely, even as I turned for a last look before she turned around and headed back to the shack. If I needed more proof, why Missouri is cast with the name ‘misery’ that was it!
I really wanted that piece of driftwood and knowing I had to return that same way — at a distance, of course — too frightened to accost her about buying the piece.
Most of those bums, alcoholics, and mental cases eventually move on to
new locales, so I kept hoping. She was strange, but no stranger than some of the others, except for the rhyme. Bittity Boppity Boo, I see you.
For weeks, and then months, it kept eating at my soul, the sight of that face yearning to be free. Remembering the driftwood, I’d sometimes rise early in the morning, walk along the misty banks checking to see if the place had been vacated.
I noticed I hadn’t seen her for a while, nor any other sign of life from the shack. There had normally been at least one cooking pot or skillet outside by a smoldering campfire.
Yesterday, edging carefully near the entrance, I called out. No answer.
From what I considered a safe distance, I looked into a door-less cavity. Gaining a little more courage, I found the place empty of occupants or equipment, cooking utensils, etc.
There was nothing inside but a dirt floor and a couple of dusty liquor bottles lying amid piles of candy-bar wrappers and other trash. In one corner, among the debris, I found a strange artifact. I kid you not, I started to believe I had found something left behind that was from the Ming dynasty.
I started to disassemble the shack, doing as least damage as possible in case another inhabitant came along. Finally, I was able to reach in and pull the piece of driftwood out, except it wasn’t driftwood. It was a piece of human bone, a piece of skeleton, surely a child.
So now, sitting here at my desk, I’m wondering if it had been the river dragon that had got this child?
Bittity Boppity Boo.
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